Shutdowns and Filibusters

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

I see a lot of social media posts from the right blaming the Democrats for the shutdown, including a comment on a LinkedIn post claiming that Democrats forced a shutdown because they wanted to cut federal funding for rural hospitals and redirect it toward health care for non-citizens.

If this LinkedIn account is genuine, you must respect this guy’s background. But if he really believes this is true, he pays little attention to how government works and even less to politics. This is easily the most egregious disinformation, if not outright lie, I’ve seen on LinkedIn – and that’s a high bar.

Yes, Republicans want you to blame Democrats for their failure to pass a continuing resolution (CR) funding the government and the resulting shutdown. They also want you to think Democrats did this because the CR does not include money to provide health care for illegal immigrants.

This is not what happened. Democrats refused to pass a cloture resolution (more on that later) that would allow a vote on the CR because the “Big Beautiful Bill” cuts funding for Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies and Medicaid. Democrats want this funding restored so that working Americans who get health care through the ACA won’t see their health care costs rise to unsustainable levels, and so that poor Americans, mostly Seniors in nursing homes and children in poor families or with disabilities, would not lose coverage. Cuts to Medicaid have already caused rural hospitals and clinics to close, but Democrats want to stop this, not use it to pay for immigrant health care.

Should Republicans agree to restore this funding, Democrats would vote for cloture, end the filibuster, and allow passage of the CR in the Senate (Republicans in the House have already passed it). A filibuster is a somewhat complicated Senate rule that allows 41 Senators to block legislation, including budget votes, simply by filing that intent. Once upon a time Senators had to hold the floor to continue a filibuster, but they got lazy and made it easy on themselves by changing the rules. Today, simply announcing the intent does the trick.

The key thing to know about the filibuster, besides the 60-vote requirement, is that the Constitution does not require it, nor does Federal law. This is a simple Senate rule, which 51 Senators could change at any time. It was originally designed to require different factions to compromise and write legislation that 60 Senators could support, rather than a simple majority. It had that effect, when segregationists used it to block voting and equal rights laws they saw as extremist, and it has that effect today when budget hawks want to cut social infrastructure spending.

In any event, this means that if Republicans, who hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate, wished to end the shutdown they could make this happen simply by changing the rules so that budget or continuing resolution votes cannot be blocked in this way. They have already done this to make it easier for them to approve Cabinet and Court nominations over the objections of Democrats, so ending the filibuster for budget votes would not set a new precedent.

Why they don’t is a good question. Could be that conservatives just hate government so much that closing it looks to them like good policy (except for ICE and the military, I guess). Perhaps they want to use the shutdown to achieve other goals, such as making workforce cuts DOGE didn’t get to, before they end it. Some have speculated that if they brought Congress back to Washington to vote on the shutdown they would have to seat Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) who just won a special election in Arizona. Seating her would create a majority in support of releasing the Epstein Files.

In any event, Democrats have indeed refused to vote for the Republican budget in its current form. They did this because they want health care funding restored. But this does not mean they are to blame for the shutdown. Republicans could end it whenever they want, and it’s time they – and their supporters – own that.

Jay Jones and Political Violence

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

As you probably know, the big news in Virginia politics this week, are the texts that Jay Jones, candidate for attorney general, sent to Delegate Carrie Coyner back in 2022, discussing basically the murder of former House of Delegates Speaker Todd Gilbert and Gilbert’s children.

I know Jay Jones. It’s hard for me to believe that he wrote this even as a joke. I don’t understand it. He’s apologized. But, you know, the fact that it entered his head at all is problematic, much less that he put it in a text.

It goes without saying that wishing political opponents and their children dead over a policy disagreement is way outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse, even as a joke or a suggestion that “if they only suffer from their own policies, they might change their minds.”

We can and should do better. And yes, as both an expression of a thought that political violence has a place in policy disputes and as a demonstration of very, very poor judgment – the kind of poor judgement no one wants to see in an attorney general – disqualifies him. His rhetoric disqualifies him. But let’s take a step back and talk a little bit about political violence more broadly.

Yes, assassination certainly counts as political violence and is indeed perhaps the ultimate example. We should work to convince people that Charlie Kirk was wrong on the merits of his policy ideas and even his religion. Simply murdering him without warning violates our most fundamental values and ethics. It’s immoral, plain and simple. 

That said, the America we know today was constructed on a foundation of political violence, starting with forced migration of Africans as slaves. The Boston Tea Party, the American Revolution, genocide against the indigenous peoples who lived here before Europeans arrived, and the attempt by the slave states to protect and expand the right to own human beings as property are all examples of political violence in our history.

Political violence continued after the Civil War in the form of Black Codes, Jim Crow, sundown towns, redlining, and other efforts to suppress the political power of outgroups. Our history is one long thread of political violence, mostly against the weak and defenseless, and mostly justified by those in power as necessary.

Today, ICE raids and the deployment of military forces to American cities look an awful lot like political violence designed to continue the suppression of groups and individuals seen by those in power as illegitimate political actors. The difference between the assassination of Kirk, or Jones’s rhetoric of murdered opponents is that, in this case, it’s agents of the State committing the political violence in our name.

Agents of the State invade apartment buildings. Agents of the state detain Americans without warrants or any kind of probable cause.

Agents of the state kidnap children in Chicago, some of them naked, and held them for no reason on the pretense of searching for gang members who were not there. 

Agents of the state detain people, some of them American citizens, almost all of them lawful residents following the law and deport them to foreign prisons where they cannot apply for redress of this unlawful detention and deportation.

Agents of the state occupy cities on the false pretense of reducing crime where local governments have quite effectively reduced it without their assistance, and who have not asked for that assistance. We know they do this under false pretenses because they end up picking up trash, not fighting crime. 

Now, for those of you who may have forgotten, these were key elements of the Founders’ grievances against the British Crown in 1776.

Quoting the Declaration of Independence:

“For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

He has kept among us in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them by a mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:”

For all the caterwauling by Jason Miyares, his running mate Winsome Sears, and Governor Youngkin about Jones’s violent political rhetoric, they all support political violence as long as it’s committed by agents of the state controlled by their Party.

Jones would push back against this. Miyares will not. 

For this reason, although I believe Jones is not qualified by temperament or judgment to serve as Virginia’s Attorney General, I believe Miyares’ support for Trump and the anti-democratic Republican Party makes him even less qualified.

I therefore plan to vote for Jones and urge my fellow Virginians to do the same. 

Once elected, I would then urge Jones to resign and allow the General Assembly to select his replacement. If Republicans control the legislature after the election, they can appoint Jason Miyares. 

That’s my two cents on this subject, and that’s probably all I’m ever going to say about it again.

Value Pack 27

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

I got some fundraising texts this week from congressional candidates that got me thinking.

Raising money is normal candidate stuff. The problem is that we have statewide elections and House of Delegate elections in Virginia this year, and congressional races are a year away. So, two things.

First of all, I think these national candidates – whose elections are more than a year away, should pay attention to supporting the local candidates in their districts this year and help make sure Virginia elects Democrats at the state level and in the House of delegates districts rather than focus on raising money this month. At least one of these candidates is doing that. When I spoke with Salam Bhatti a few weeks ago and mentioned this to him he took it to heart – and went straight out and created an ActBlue page that would take donations for all of the House of delegates candidates in the first Congressional District.

I think the Shannon Taylors of the world ought to do the same thing.

Many of the candidates running for House of Delegate seats whose districts touch CD1 have difficult races in red parts of the Commonwealth. These are districts that the party doesn’t think a Democrat can win, so they don’t think it makes sense to support their campaigns. 

I disagree because these guys are out there on the ground in a statewide election year. They’re knocking on doors, they’re on social media, they’re putting up signs. They’re talking to people. They’re going to meet and greets, talking to voters. They’re working to get out the vote. Voters they turn out for their campaigns will probably also support the statewide candidates on the blue side, which means they’re doing a lot of groundwork for the statewide candidates. So, if you support Abigail Spanberger, you should want to support these guys.

The Democratic Party, and the elected officials in Virginia who already hold General Assembly seats, could provide critical financial support to these efforts. Democratic Party Senators, who don’t have to stand for election until 2027, could donate to these campaigns. Candidates in House races who have no Republican opponent could give critical financial support to these fellow Democrats.

It’s difficult to overstate the epic disaster we would have in this commonwealth if Winsome Sears is governor and somehow managed to get control of the legislature. If you think it’s bad at the national level, wait until you see that at the Commonwealth level.

So this is what we need to do. Sixteen candidates for the House of Delegates in Virginia have no opponent. They they’re sitting on money, some of them with more than a million dollars, some of them with more than half a million. Nine or ten have more than $50,000. They don’t need this money for their own races.

It makes no sense at all for them not to be supporting these candidates in other races, even those they don’t believe can win. They should also be supporting these red district candidates – we’re not going to grow the majority unless we start winning elections in these districts that look like they’re too red to win.

My good friend Fergie Reid, who is a civil rights icon in Virginia, has done a lot of work trying to make sure we have a candidate on the ballot in every district. This year he succeeded, despite Democratic Party apathy.

Twenty-seven of these candidates run in these red districts that nobody thinks we can win, so they get no Party support. So his good friend Charles Gaba set up what he calls the Value Pack 27 ActBlue Page similar to Salaam’s List. Donations made on this page will be split among the 27 Democrats who are running in these hard races.

My ask is that if you know a Virginia legislator who is sitting on a campaign chest but doesn’t have an opponent, reach out to them. Ask them why they’re withholding important support Democratic Party candidates who need help in red districts. 

I’m talking about Don Scott and a lot of these Northern Virginia candidates. The Senate candidates that don’t have an election until 2027. They have two and a half years before they face reelection. They can donate to these candidates who may not win but work hard to turn out the vote in these districts. 

Go write a check yourself. We need to support these Democrats. I ran for office twice in Virginia in very red districts so I know this from personal experience that it doesn’t take a lot of money to mount a little bit of a campaign and make a difference. When I ran for the House of delegates in 2021, a statewide year, I pulled 12,000 votes in a very red district – 12,000 votes that probably went to Terry McAuliffe in his losing effort.

If we can get these guys a little bit of money for more signs, more direct mail, more postcards, more meet and greets, then we can help get out the vote not only for them, but for the state party, as well. That means Abigail Spanberger has a better chance to win. Ghazala Hashmi has a better chance to win.

Jay Jones has a better chance to win. If Jay Jones is attorney general, he’ll push back on the Trump administration by filing lawsuits when they do things that violate the Constitution. Jason Miyares won’t do that. If Abigail Spanberger is governor, she will sign bills that make Virginia a better place to live. Winsome Sears will not. 

We need to do everything we can. The Democratic Party needs to put the pedal to the metal. The national candidates running for Congress next year need to put the pedal to the metal. We all need to do everything we can to get these folks elected and protect democracy. In Virginia, we can protect it this year in the Commonwealth even if our chance to protect it nationally doesn’t come until next year.

Trump and Epstein

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

Just want to make sure we’re straight on the Epstein thing.

We know that the POTUS was a longtime friend with America’s most notorious child sex trafficker. Lots of happy photos and video of them partying together. 

We also know that the POTUS’ name appears many times in the files compiled during the investigation of that notorious child sex traffickers…sex trafficking. 

Now the entire Federal government, including the DOJ, is doing all it possibly can to keep the public, the media, and Congress from knowing about the nature of POTUS’ relationship to the notorious child sex trafficker.

This includes launching an investigation into the former POTUS and his administration based on absolutely no evidence of any kind.

But wait. There’s more. 

Speaker Mike Johnson adjourned Congress and sent them home because they couldn’t answer questions about the POTUS’ relationship with the notorious child sex trafficker. They were afraid to vote on disclosure of files that might include information on the president’s long-term relationship with America’s most notorious child sex trafficker. 

And now the president’s former personal defense attorney and current Deputy Attorney General has met with the notorious child sex trafficker’s co-conspirator. Interviewed her for hours and then granted her a very special favor: a move to a club-Fed type minimum security prison. Maybe to get her favorable testimony to protect the POTUS?

Who, along with the vice president, held a meeting with the Attorney General and the FBI Director to discuss withholding the files after they all spent the entire 2024 campaign promising to release them.

Which makes all this look like it’s about hypocrisy and broken campaign promises. But that’s not what this is about.

This is about child sex trafficking, and a massive government conspiracy tied to covering up information about the sitting POTUS’ role in that child sex trafficking. 

Don’t let accusations of treason against political opponents, tariff chaos, or anything else distract from this.

Trump Fires BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

Corporations, business owners, investors, and entrepreneurs need accurate data to make good decisions. Every day, organizations and individuals make critical decisions about whether to build a new factory, expand operations, trade securities, and borrow money, among many others.

This makes firing Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Commissioner Erika McEntarfer – on fabricated grounds that the Bureau of Labor Statistics “rigged” data in the most recent jobs report to make Trump look bad – a huge problem for American businesses. American corporations and investors can no longer trust government economic data on the US economy going forward. It’s clear that Trump will quash any bad news and publish only rosy numbers and optimistic projections. 

MAGA will cheer this news and line up to say that if Trump says it’s so then it must be so. The jobs report was rigged and McEntarfer should go to prison! We’re really in great shape on the employment front! The economy is growing! Prices are low again!

Trump has fixed everything! He’s the best President ever!

Others will see this for what it is: an effort to stroke Trump’s ego by tricking people into thinking things are fine when they are not.

Everyone should understand that even if labor data has little or no impact on decisions that affect your bottom line, this will not be the last time Trump cooks the data analysis books to make his policies look better than they really are. He’ll do this again.

Regular people who watch prices on life’s necessities while they can’t find work won’t be fooled by rosy data saying inflation is down and the economy is booming. 

Corporations, business owners, investors, and entrepreneurs won’t be fooled either they see the fabricated upward revisions Trump will expect, and get, from whatever flunky he appoints to the job. They know they’ll be forced to make billion-dollar decisions in an information vacuum. 

If you’re a CEO, small business owner, entrepreneur, or individual investor who supports Trump, this of all things should wake you up, even if extralegal detentions of citizens and lawful US residents did not.

Fingers crossed.

[Cross-posted on LInkedIn with minor edits.]

A Singular American “Ethnos?”

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

One of the many projects I’m working on now that I have some time on my hands is a dive into Curtis Yarvin, who cosplays as a political theorist and has argued that the American democratic experiment failed and should be replaced by an “accountable monarchy,” whatever that means. 

I’ll dig into his ideas more soon, but while looking into Yarvin I found a right-wing podcaster named Auron MacIntyre who also wrote a book called “The Total State: How Liberal Democracies Become Tyrannies.” I have not read this book, but it seems to boil down to a whine about eroding civil liberties in the name of public health.

MacIntyre hosted Yarvin on his podcast back in May (you can find this on other platforms if you don’t like Pandora). After listening to the Yarvin episode I dug into MacIntyre a bit more and found this: a discussion with a pastor named Douglas Wilson about restoring what Wilson calls the “American Ethnos,” – the idea that America once was, or could again be, a singular people bound by blood, belief, and heritage. 

This is a problematic notion, if only because the terminology wants to direct us to an ethnic view of what they mean by singular people. Wilson builds his thesis around a definition borrowed from theologian Stephen Bryan: that an ethnos is a people with a shared name, land, memory, kinship, values, and decision-making structure. Fair enough as a cultural descriptor. The trouble starts when Wilson strays from this by criticizing what he calls a “propositional” concept of national identity based on shared norms and understanding around a pluralism based on liberty and popular sovereignty. It’s not enough to center American identity on these values.

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Stan Visits a Confederate Monument, Part 1

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

Photo by Martin Falbisoner

Sculpted in bronze by French artist Antonin Mercie and based on an Aldabert Volck lithograph of Lee on his horse, this is the statue that once stood on Monument Avenue and honored the traitor Robert E. Lee, who deserted his post with the United States Army when Virginia seceded from the Union in April 1861.  Lee instead took a Commission in the Confederate Army in defense of the power of states to permit slavery.

Lee, a prominent Virginian, opposed secession but resigned the US Army Commission he earned at West Point to avoid fighting against his home state.  He commanded Confederate forces in western Virginia and helped organize coastal defenses in Georgia and South Carolina before taking command of the Army of Northern Virginia in 1862.  Lee has been praised as a strong battlefield tactician and commander but in fact proved ineffective at building an effective staff and issuing clear orders. His insistence on offensive operations cost the Confederacy casualties they could not afford to lose. He focused too narrowly on defending Virginia and contributed little to a broader strategy for defending the entire Confederacy and winning the war.  

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A Fourth American Republic?

~ R. Stanton Scott ~ Leave a comment

I’m working on putting together an online American government course intended for homeschoolers and adult learners – think high school senior AP class that would look like a college freshman class – and my research on the Reconstruction era got me into The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic, by Manisha Sinha. The title borrows from Shirer’s The Collapse of the Third Republic, an examination of the fall of France to the Nazis in 1940. This framing of French history refers to the series of democratic (more or less) revolutions that ended monarchies and established something resembling parliamentary democracy.

Sinha frames American history in a similar way without the monarchy part, with the First Republic established by the original Constitution and the Second Republic she refers to coming through Reconstruction and the Reconstruction Amendments ratified after the Civil War ended in Confederate defeat. I’ll try to write a more comprehensive review once I’ve read the book, but the short version of her argument as I understand it now is that Reconstruction established, for a time, a true multi-ethnic democratic republic based on the abolition of slavery. In her reading reconstruction also opened a pathway for women’s suffrage and greater independence from husbands and fathers, in part at least as a result of the role women played in the abolition movement. Sadly, this Republic died at the hands of Black Codes, Jim Crow laws, and segregation.

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